


Tea With Zombies

by feverbeats



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-12
Updated: 2010-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:17:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Call me Tonks and you can come in," she says, because when dead relatives show up on your doorstep you probably get to make up the rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea With Zombies

  
Tonks's life is confusing and mad and full of danger and fear, so right now she's hiding in her own little flat in London. She can apparate to Order meetings easily enough, although she dreads them now. Seeing Remus is just getting harder, especially as his job spying on the Werewolves is taking a greater and greater emotional toll on him. She sometimes feels like collateral damage in his emotional war.

It's three in the morning when someone knocks on her door.

It could be someone from the Order. It could be Remus. It could be Death Eaters. She takes a deep breath and pulls the door open.

Her third guess turns out to the closest to correct. Regulus Black is standing on her doorstep, biting his lip and looking unsure.

Tonks has seen enough pictures and heard enough stories to know that it's him. His dark hair is in a short ponytail, a little long, a little silly, but still perfectly neat.

"I didn't know where else to go," he says simply, but he doesn't sound upset or desperate. He just sounds like he's being sensible.

Tonks shoves a hand through her hair. She's lived in the wizarding world all her life, but it still takes her by surprise sometimes. Dead means dead. That's one of the ground rules. "Regulus?" she says.

He gives her a nervous smile. "Nymphadora, right? Dromeda's baby? The Metamorphagus?"

"Call me Tonks and you can come in," she says, because when dead relatives show up on your doorstep you probably get to make up the rules.

"All right. Tonks." His mouth does something complicated around the name, but she tries to ignore it. After he steps inside, he says, "I'm really sorry to just drop in like this." He looks around with what appears to be polite interest at her clumsily furnished flat.

Tonks sighs. "Can I make you some tea? Or would you like to explain what the hell you're doing here?" That's half her dad and half her mum, half kind and half sensibly irritated.

Regulus huffs out a laugh. "Oh, sorry. Well. It's a bit of a long story. If that's okay?" He casts her a questioning glance.

She doesn't bother hesitating. "Have a seat." If he is some sort of Death Eater in disguise, he might have picked a better one. She allows herself to turn her back on him and puts the teakettle on.

Regulus sits on her battered couch, not looking quite at ease when she turns to face him again. She's surprised, maybe because she expected him to be more like Sirius, who could look at home anywhere but 12 Grimmauld Place. Then again, she never expected to meet Regulus at _all_, especially a tense, teenage Regulus.

"How did you find me?" Tonks asks, avoiding the obvious question for the moment.

Regulus smiles, looking a little pleased with himself. "It was in the telephone book, actually." Maybe he's proud that he knows what a phone book is.

Tonks mentally smacks herself. Of course. Side-effect of choosing a Muggle neighborhood because the rent is cheaper. "Which brings us to the real bloody question," she says.

Regulus leans back on the couch in what looks like a movement calculated to mimic ease rather than actual relaxation. "Right, well. That's the difficult part." His eyes flick to the window and he lowers his voice. "It was a completely awful idea, actually. It's a time traveling thing."

Tonks opens her mouth to say, _I'd noticed_, but she keeps quiet.

Regulus reaches inside his robes and pulls out a minuscule time turner. Tilting his head slightly, he draws his wand out, points it at the time turner, and says, "Engorgio."

Tonks blinks. She's never seen a time turner that big before. "Wait," she says, "You used a bloody _time turner_ to to come this far into the future? That's practically unheard of."

"It _is_ unheard of," Regulus says a little testily, as if he wants to make sure she knows he's the one who thought of it first. She's reminded of Sirius when his eyes flash. "But I had to know if my plan worked. Will work. You know. I overshot by a bit, though. I'm not used to using a time turner, let alone one this size, and I thought maybe I'd drop in here. It seemed the safest place to go without upsetting anyone."

Tonks wants to say that she's upset, a little, but this is too surreal for complaints. "Right," she says. "Well, what's your brilliant plan, then?"

Regulus smiles a little wistfully. "I can't tell you. But it did work. Marvelously."

"You're awfully proud of yourself," Tonks says.

At that, Regulus cracks a real smile, sharp and fierce like Sirius's but without all the strain and malice.

Tonk grins back. "You're all right. I always sort of thought I'd have hated you. Mum liked you, sure, but she said you were Bellatrix's favorite. I didn't trust that."

Regulus's face creases. "That's too bad. I did like her, you know. She was the only one who really treated me like family."

"Unlike Sirius, you mean," Tonks says guardedly. She doesn't feel comfortable passing judgment on Sirius at the moment, but she's heard the stories.

"Yeah," Regulus says. "You know, one time he told James Potter that he was like a brother to him. Right in front of me."

Tonks bites her lip. "That's just fucking awful." Sirius was cruel and sharp last year, but she told herself that was because of his long stay in Azkaban and his following imprisonment in his childhood home. She had suspected that he was sort of a tosser all along, but she never felt right saying so.

Regulus shrugs as though slipping out from under old ghosts. "It doesn't really matter."

The teakettle goes off and Tonks busies herself pouring Regulus a cup. "No one's exactly sure what happened to you," she says, wanting very badly to change the subject. "That's what mum told me, anyhow. Sirius said you were killed by Death Eaters, but mum says you just disappeared."

Regulus makes a small sound in the back of his throat. Then he says softly, "Inferi. It's going to be Inferi. I can't tell you anything more than that. I'm sorry. I know it's in the past for you and that it doesn't matter now, but I can't take any risks."

Tonks nods and shakes off a shudder. What a horrible way to die. She wonders if they killed him or—Some of the tea sloshes out of the cup as she hands it to him.

He takes the cup and says, almost to himself, "Do you think I should go see Severus?" His eyes are dark like Sirius's when he says Snape's name, and it gives Tonks chills.

"I don't know," she says. "Were you . . . friends?" She can't imagine Snape having friends.

"Oh," Regulus says, as though coming back to himself. "No. Um. Well, yes. He was my boyfriend." There's a fraction of a second's pause before he says _boyfriend_.

Laughing would be wrong and horrible, so Tonks doesn't. She just manages a somewhat strangled, "Oh."

Regulus sips the hot tea carefully. "Should I visit him? I mean, I know I'm going to die soon. That means he's been without me for . . . Well, a long time. He might miss me." He doesn't look at all afraid when he talks about dying, just sort of tired and strangely hopeful.

Tonks takes a moment. Then she says, "No," because she hates Snape, but she doesn't hate him that much. Seeing his dead boyfriend probably isn't the worst thing that could happen to him, but she gets the feeling that he'd handle it badly.

Regulus nods. "I thought not. What about Sirius? Is he . . .?"

The idea that anyone thinks Sirius could have survived so long is almost laughable and it makes her feel ill. "Sorry," he says. "No."

"No," Regulus echoes. "Oh." His brows knit. "I should go. Nothing good ever comes from messing about with time, does it?"

"I don't know," Tonks says. "This is good, isn't it? Meeting relatives you thought you'd never meet?"

Regulus's sudden, bright grin is amazing. "You're right. It's not like our blood war matters anymore, I suppose."

"No," Tonks says, "Not really." It's not quite true, but it's true enough.

"Thank you," he says, and then he's standing to leave, holding the overlarge hourglass in his hands like a toy. "It was nice to meet you." The stilted language of good etiquette doesn't sound forced in his mouth.

"Yeah," she says, then then he's gone, flipping back through time and out of sight.

What a weird fucking night. She thinks it was worth it, though, losing a night of sleeping discovering that someone she thought she hated was actually a decent person. She decides to make another cup of tea and read all night so she doesn't have to dream of Inferi and burning tapestries.


End file.
